Wikibooks talk:Game Books

I'm for this policy, but I'm afraid that "Young Children's Games" section leaves a backdoor for books about completely new board games. --Derbeth talk 18:20, 11 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I had started writing specifically about VGs and RPGs, but then started to think about other kinds of games too. For example, we recently deleted a book stub on "Beer pong", and I can imagine new books on the latest Parker BrosTM games appearing as well. The young childrens games I had in mind were more of the "duck, duck, goose!" variety... perhaps a single book about such games would be appropriate for teachers and parents, since young children sometimes like to reinvent the rules so that they always "win" ;-). We've really got very little content here on early childhood education, but since most of the games and activities taught to the very young are passed down through oral tradition, this might be a great project for us! -- SB_Johnny | talk 18:43, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Removing comments about Jimbo
Well, first of all, he is no longer the chairman of the Wikimedia Foundation. Indeed, I havn't even really seen him get involved with much of anything related to Wikimedia projects, except in the case of the fiasco with w:User:Essjay, and that had a direct tie with what Jimbo has been doing lately with Wikia.

In addition, Jimbo's comments were very divisive, and incomplete as well. I'm not going to turn this into a critical comment about Jimbo here, but it is very much his style to stir up the pot a little bit, suggest there might be a problem, and then be vague about the possible solution. The video game books are but one example of this. In addition, if you look at w:User:Jimbo Wales and look at "You can edit this page right now", he openly encourages people to challenge what is currently policy and that you should be able to propose significant changes.

On the other hand, even Jimbo acknowledged that "Any changes to the software must be gradual and reversible." This includes project policies. One of the huge complaints I had about what happened with the video game books was that the changes were of a very permanent nature.

Most importantly, I would hope that in terms of official policies that we here on Wikibooks can think for ourselves. Even if at the time Jimbo wanted to encourage a critical review about video game books, and questioned their validity as educational content, we shouldn't be treating his words here as holy scripture. He is a good man, but it is just the opinion of that one individual. One of the things I like how the Foundation has been going lately is that this "god-king" role is simply not there any more. Certainly Brad Patrick and Anthere get huge respect, but they aren't quite the same thing here.

Let's just deal with the policy here and keep in this case the historical perspetives in the talk pages. While there may be strong historical reasons for culling video game books, that doesn't mean it has to be this way. We certainly can change that policy if there is concensus here to do so. Or to go in completely different directions. What really needs to happen is for the Wikibooks community to lay to rest for once and all what happened here, and debate policy on the merits of the ideas, and not because "Jimbo said" something.

Is there anybody realistically saying that Wikibooks will be shut down by the WMF because we are including video game books? Where was that said? If admins decide to keep these books, are they going to be desysoped (baring that official policy developed by the community has not banned them yet)? Let's get rid of this very direct personal attack and instead deal with the ideas about improving the quality of Wikibooks in general... and to answer critcism by reviewers and educators that Wikibooks is nothing more than a bunch of video game cheat books. --Rob Horning 20:44, 11 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Personal attack? (I really have no idea what you mean.) Whether or not Jimbo is currently the chairman -- and was he still chairman when he made those comments? -- He generally only speaks at the behest of and/or for the benefit of his fellow foundation members. -- SB_Johnny | talk 22:00, 11 March 2007 (UTC)


 * There are a good many things that are worth saying at this point, but in interests of brevity, I will try to focus on some of the most important. First and foremost, even if Jimbo is just "one man", and is no longer the head of the foundation, he is still highly influential and successful. His input, while certainly not the only reason for it, was a major factor in the explosive growth of wikipedia, and the entire wikimedia culture. Jimbo is just one man, but is input and his comments should be given the utmost consideration and respect. Our project would likely stand to benefit from a more "hands-on" interaction with Jimbo or any of the other board members.
 * Second, videogame guides simply and undeniably are not textbooks and therefore don't belong here. It's not a matter of the WMF reprimanding us if we don't follow our mission, it's a matter of us failing to make our project a better, more valuable resource. When we decide to include things that aren't textbooks, we are failing the project, and we are making Wikibooks less then it could be. We could include all sorts of stuff here, Videogame guides, fiction, essays, etc, but then wikibooks would be reduced to an unfocused mishmash of all sorts of written nonsense. The fear of punishment should not be our primary motivator, and it should likely not be a motivation at all. The betterment and promotion of the Wikibooks project should be our ultimate goal here, and that goal is not served by the inclusion of non-textbook materials. People can argue about this all day long, but when the dust settles there is one obvious, "right" thing to do here, and we should be bound to follow that path. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 00:20, 12 March 2007 (UTC)


 * There is not one "right" thing to do, because the inclusion or non-inclusion of video game guides is not an ethical choice. The inclusion or non-inclusion of video game guides solely depends upon one's own opinion about the constituants of an "education." And, frankly, I see little merit to the claim that an "education" may only consist of academically rigorous "textbooks", "annotated texts", "how-to guides", and texts directly related to "sports....card games, board games....[and] young children's games."
 * To consider Jimbo's words as dogmatic is silly; they are not dogmatic nor should they ever be regarded as dogmatic. Jimbo did help start the Wikimedia Foundation and did help start Wikipedia, but he was never invovled in Wikibooks: he has only made 52 contributions to the project, with only approximately 20 edits to functional or policy-related pages dealing with his intent to rid Wikibooks of video game guides; and a few letters in the mailing list in the first two months and then in June/July 2006. We have been left to do what we can ourselves with policy texts poorly adapted from Wikipedia (go around to the original archives and see how many are "adapted from wikipedi --mav" or something like that) and an inspirational mission to write and give away free textbooks to the world with no promise of profit. That is amazing. But to exclude a whole class of books which, in our modern world, are becoming increasingly necessary, based on the assertion that they are "non-textbook," "written nonsense," or "simply and undeniably [not] textbooks," is to deny free (as in freedom) texts to a rapidly modernizing world. Why? What is the point? Because some educators might shy away simply because they deem these texts "not educational"? That is the nonsense we are adhering to if we outrightly ban video game-related texts. That should not happen. --Iamunknown 03:21, 12 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Where is that "right thing to do here"? What exactly is that line?  And why are we really removing video game books from this project?
 * If the reason for removing video game books is because they are discussing a commercial product, then all Wikibooks which are about commercial products, not just video games, should be removed as well.
 * If the reason for removing video game books is because they don't "appear" as a textbook... well, name a Wikibook that does for that matter. That gives us Organic Chemistry and what else?  About 10 other Wikibooks perhaps.  Let's say goodbye to the How-to books and Wikijunior as well using this criteria.
 * And even throughout this whole process, it was the video game walkthroughs that were the real issue here... or perhaps to be more clear, "cheat guides" for video games. I don't think those do belong here on Wikibooks... I will conceed that.  But what is being expressed here is that video game books based upon the title alone are subject to deletion, regardless of the kind or quality of the content.  It is that point I objected to right in the beginning, and what I'm still arguing about here.  And that these books are being speedy deleted (at least originally... without even so much as a VfD) on the presumed authority of Jimbo and the Wikimedia Foundation when such a pronoucement was never given in the first place.  Jimbo himself said as much directly to me.  It is that point especially that I have objected to above all.
 * There never was community concensus achieved before this content was removed, and that is why I'm making such a fuss about it now when the opposite is being claimed. --Rob Horning 07:59, 12 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I did not say to treat Jimbo's words as being dogmatic, I certainly don't view it that way. However, I see Jimbo as being experienced in the wiki-world, and highly successful at that. We certainly don't need to agree with Jimbo, or any of the other board members if we choose not to, but it is foolhardy of us to think that outside opinions (especially those of jimbo or the other board members) do not matter and do not warrant our full consideration.
 * The inclusion or exclusion of videogame guides is not an ethical choice, I never said that either. Only one of those two options, however, is in alignment with our stated mission: "Wikibooks is a collection of open-content textbooks". That page does not say that "Wikibooks is a collection of all sorts of non-fiction books", or "Wikibooks contains a bunch of books, guides, and pamphlets for instruction on all subjects imaginable." Videogame guides serve no educational value by any standard, they cannot and never will be used to teach classes, and they are simply not textbooks. It isn't an issue of whether we like them or not. It isn't a question of whether they might bring more traffic to our project.
 * The Wikimania proceedings did not belong here and you, Rob, fought tooth and nail to have them removed. Wikiversity did not belong here, and it was excised (slowly and painfully). Lots of other content is removed regularly, both via VFD and speedy deletion. My point here is that we do not, nor have we ever, been inclusionary. We do not champion free speach, we do not stand against censorship, and we do not host all manner of written material here. There are strict (albeit vague) inclusion criteria that all material on wikibooks must satisfy. We do a disservice to the project by choosing to ignore these criteria, or to bend them for one particular category of content. It is a mistake to assume that wikibooks is some kind of moral crusade for freedom of speach or freedom of the press. We are a textbook authoring community, and things that do not fit in with that purpose are censored and deleted regularly.
 * Even without these guides we still have hundreds of appropriate books, on multiple bookshelves, and an almost infinite pool of subjects on which new books can be written. The removal of videogame guides is not a practical limitation in terms of our content, our contributorship, or our potential. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 13:05, 12 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I will note that in regards to the Wikimania pages, even the people organizing the content openly mentioned on many places that the content needed to be moved eventually. And it was permitted to remain on Wikibooks until well after Wikimania was over.  I didn't even really make waves about moving it until it had already been about halfway started in being moved over, so I decided to finish the job, only to have all of my edits (and deletions) reverted by Brion Vibber and direct threats against me by both e-mail, my personal talk page, phone calls, IRC, an finally on the Staff Lounge, where I insisted the discussion had to occur.  That the main organizer of the Wikimania proceedings decided to step completely out of the normal process of filing a complaint on Votes for undeletion and instead got Brion Vibber to undelete the content, and got both Angela and Anthere on my case is also testament to the fact that something was seriously wrong.  I stood up to them.  Thank goodness (in this case) the rest of the Wikibooks communty was behind me on this issue.  Otherwise I'm sure I would have been blocked and banned.  The personal attacks in that episode against me were simply unreal, and what is currently seen on the Staff Lounge archives only hints at what was said.  --Rob Horning 04:37, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Bringing back older discussion points
There is a myopic view that this whole issue about hosting video game books was something that was initiated by Jimbo Wales. That is hardly the case, and to prove this point, I'm restoring an earlier discussion that went into detail about pros and cons of allowing video game books on Wikibooks. These points and counter points were made in several places, but I think this does the absolute best job of showing the stronger arguments on both sides of the debate.

Unfortunately, this page is buried in the ancient archives of Wikibooks, and it is for this reason that I'm sweeping the dust off for this document that was last edited on December 2005 (a couple of months before the infamous letter by Jimbo about this topic). --Rob Horning 08:44, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikibooks will either permit or reject game manuals such as the ones on Games bookshelf and Computer and video games bookshelf. Discuss at Wikibooks talk:Game manual guidelines.
 * If it permits game manuals, then this page will be guidelines for them.
 * If it rejects game manuals, then it would change What is Wikibooks so that the rejection is enforced policy. This page will be guidelines for how to move game manuals away from Wikibooks.

In addition to using the talk page, you can now edit the sections below, which contain arguments for and against game guides at Wikibooks.

For (Wikibooks should include game guides)

 * Game strategy guides qualify as how-to guides, and Wikibooks includes those.
 * Wikibooks should include instructional material, including game guides, even if it can only be read outside of school.
 * Wikicities is not a sister project of Wikibooks, so it is incorrect to imply that because Wikicities exists, we should move game guides from Wikibooks to Wikicities.
 * Related to the above point, there is no other Wikimedia sister project other than Wikibooks that would be able to host game guide content, baring the possibility of creating a whole new Wikimedia sister project exclusively for this sort of content.
 * Potential contributors can use the guides to become familiar with how to edit Wikibooks. Some contributors might be less afraid of damaging a game guide, rather than the calculus textbook.
 * The game guides can attract readers to Wikibooks who might become contributors to other parts of Wikibooks.
 * Some games are studied in schools, especially Chess. Also, schools for video game developers study existing video games.
 * College major areas of study include video game theory and game design in some Universities. Some Game Design courses include:
 * UAT bachelors degree in Video Game design
 * Full Sail Game Design Major (BTW, 1st major univserity to offer game design major)
 * History of Computer Game Design at Standford University
 * University of Wales Computer Game Design Major
 * Discussion of a Master's Degree in Video Game Design at Southern Methodist University
 * Video Game Design Curriculum at Cornell University
 * Wikibooks should include sports because many schools have sports teams.
 * Many schools have extracurricular activities for groups of gamers. Some student government associations recognise these gaming groups.
 * Wikipedia includes games, so Wikibooks should too. If a Wikipedia article exists, it ought to be reasonable to make a NPOV Wikibook on the same subject, given enough source material to work with to add enough content for a full book-length project.
 * Students want to learn games. Wikibooks should include game guides so that these readers are satisfied.
 * Game guides will help in the future the growth of Wikibooks. (Including game guides simply makes Wikibooks larger.)
 * It would be difficult to remove or transwiki a potential of 2 bookshelves, Games Bookshelf  and  Computer and video games bookshelf
 * German Wikibooks chose de:Go as book of the month. Other games at Wikibooks in other languages:
 * fr:Solution, truc et astuce de jeu vidéo video games
 * de:Regal Diverse games
 * de:Regal Sport sport de-WB changed subjects -- Juetho 09:25, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
 * de:Regal:Spiele games
 * Bandwidth issues for hosting and serving Game Guide content really is trivial and elimination of all game guides is not going to make much of an impact on server performance for any Wikimedia project.
 * Gaming guides and Wikijunior are two relatively isolated development groups so there is not going to be any real impact on Wikijunior regardless of what decision is made on gaming guides. Besides, future directions of Wikijunior are going to open up a seperate domain like http://www.wikijunior.org that is already live.  It is more likely that kids are going to start on Wikijunior and then discover the gaming guides later, especially given the limited content on Wikijunior at the moment.
 * The actual transwiki (if it takes place) would be a minor inconveniance compared to the backlash of the readers and editors when they find out they are no longer welcome here.

Against (Wikibooks should exclude game guides)

 * Game guides are random guides on a subject that someone likes (see WB:WIW) so they are not allowed at Wikibooks.
 * It doesn't matter if the games themselves are on Wikipedia. That is an encyclopaedia, this is not. The most editing article on WP is George W. Bush. Do we need a Wikibook on how to become the U.S. President? There is an article on Ann Coulter. Do we need a Wikibook on How to Talk to a Liberal (If you Must)? Just because something is germane to WP does not make it germane for WB.
 * Yes, classes may be offered on video game design, but a textbook for those classes would not include multiple complete walkthroughs and cheat codes. Maybe one or two examples within a larger video game design book, but not one for every game available.
 * Entertainment is not academic. Because game guides instruct the reader in how to entertain oneself, they cannot qualify as academic, which makes them less useful for Wikibooks. (Instructing the reader to entertain others might be academic. Game development instead of game strategy.)
 * The game guides waste bandwith. Excluding them would reduce the stress on the Wikimedia servers.
 * Game guides harm Wikijunior because children may read them instead of Wikijunior.
 * There is no school class for videogame strategy anywhere. So Wikibooks cannot allow video game guides, even if its allows other game guides.
 * Game guides reduce the standard of Wikibooks. Removing all game guides would reduce the scope of material on Wikibooks, which would have several benefits. Wikipedia would be discouraged from moving material to Wikibooks during "articles for deletion". Contributors would have more interest in Wikibooks because Wikibooks would be more academic.
 * Moving game guides to Wikicities would help Google ads fund Wikicities. Though Wikicities is not a Wikimedia project, some Wikibooks contributors are also Wikicities contributors who support both Wikibooks and Wikicities.
 * There are other places to go if you want to find video game guides.
 * Just because something is easy, does not make it right. People claim the sheer difficulty of transwikiing an entire bookshelf should stop it from being done. Cleaning up after vandals is hard, should we just stop doing that too? Also, one can use Special:Export and Special:Import to help in transwiki.

Double-edge Arguments (Arguments that can be viewed to support either side)
Here is a quote of User:Aya on Wikibooks talk:Policies and guidelines. One could argue that this is the appropriate location for game guides, or that they should be moved to yet another wiki.

''It all started with the project now hosted at en.wikipedia.org. The idea being to collaboratively create a generalized encyclopedia with no (apparent) limitation on its scope. ... At some point, someone (perhaps Jimbo?) decided this was going to get in the way of creating an encyclopedia, so a number of other Wikimedia projects were set up, in the hopes that this data could be transferred to a more appropriate location. ... Over time, some content was transferred, while some was not. Since each project had its own 'what is/isn't' page, users changed its scope over time as well. The endless cycle continues today:''


 * 1) Create a new wiki
 * 2) Create a badly-defined scope
 * 3) Fill it with inappropriate content
 * 4) When it becomes unmanagable, goto 1

Alternate wikis

 * Even if Wikibooks accepts game manuals, a good alternate wiki for game manuals might be wikicities:c:gameinfo.
 * Encyclopedia articles about games are found at Wikipedia, for example Go and Super Mario Bros..